1Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, 2Palo Alto Institute for Research and Education, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, 3Laboratory of Immunology and Vascular Biology, Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine

1Centre for Biomedical Research, Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health, 2Department of Infectious Diseases, Monash University, 3Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, 4Department of Microbiology, The University of the West Indies, 5Division of Experimental Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 6Department of Medicine, Monash University

Cells migration in response to chemical cues is crucial to development, immunity and disease states such as cancer. To quantify cell migration, a simple assay was developed in 1961 by Dr. Stephen Boyden, which is now known as the transwell migration assay or Boyden chamber assay. This set-up consists an insert which separates the wells of a multiwell plate into top and bottom compartments. Cells whose migration is to be studied are seeded into the top compartment and the chemoattractant solution is placed in the bottom compartment. After incubation, counting the cells in the bottom compartment allows quantification of migration induced by chemoattractants.
This video will review the commonly used experimental set-up for cell migration studies. Then we'll highlight a few key considerations, and outline a generalized protocol for running an experiment involving adherent cells. Lastly, we'll review various adaptations of this set-up currently being used to study different factors that affect migration.…

1Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, 2Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, 3Division of Hematology and Oncology, Hess Center for Science and Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center

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JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) is the world’s first PubMed-indexed scientific video journal. Its mission is to advance scientific research and education by increasing productivity, reproducibility, and efficiency of knowledge transfer for scientists, educators, and students worldwide through visual learning solutions.